What they are in on, they’ll be into

One of the more interesting statements I’ve heard about coaching the past few years was from John Weaver of the Culture Classroom Podcast. He made a statement that we as coaches rent our programs whereas our athletes own their programs. I think this is an interesting paradigm shift which is consistent with the philosophy of servant leadership in general as well as general principals of motivation.

In his book on motivation titled Drive, Dan Pink outlines what he refers to as Motivation 3.0 which includes autonomy, mastery and purpose. The book, Pink outlines four aspects of autonomy: task, time, technique and team. He asserts that the more of those elements you have, the more autonomy you’ll feel and, the more engagement you’ll feel with your work. Low autonomy leads to low engagement. High autonomy leads to high engagement.

In their research on what they have named Self Determination Theory (SDT) Edward Deci and Richard Ryan contend that autonomy is one of three basic human needs. Of the three (autonomy, competence and relatedness), they stress that autonomy is the most important and the “sun around which the other SDTs orbit. They write,

“Autonomous motivation involves behaving with a full sense of volition and choice, whereas controlled motivation involves behaving with the experience of pressure and demand toward specific outcomes that comes from forces perceived to be external to the self.“

Deci and Ryan as quoted in Drive by Daniel Pink

In a study at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, researchers followed 3,148 Wisconsinites for 20 years and found that “When job demands are greater than the control afforded by the job or an individual’s ability to deal with those demands, there is a deterioration of their mental health,” according to lead author Erik Gonzalez-Mulé, assistant professor of organizational behavior and human resources.

All of this goes to support the point that what you athletes are in on, they will be into. Finding ways to give athletes voice and choice is essential not only in providing your athletes ownership and buy-in but also to provide you with valuable information that you would otherwise not be aware of. This is demonstrated in what some call the Rumsfeld Knowledge Matrix. Getting student input will help shine a light on that dark box that is “what we don’t know we don’t know.”

In a blog post on valuing student voice, Jimmy Casas writes,

“If we really want to know about the learning environment or climate/culture of any classroom, I think we need to start by collecting information from the most critical voice – the students’ voice. After all, aren’t they the ones who could best describe to us how they feel about being in a class?  I think so. So why don’t we take the time to ask them? Are we afraid of what they might say? Is it an issue of time? Do we not truly value their voice? Do we not have a process or a tool to do so? Consider the benefit as three-fold. One, the information that we would collect could give us better insight into what students think about how they feel; a feeling that impacts their ability to learn and ultimately the level of their success in the classroom. Two, we can use the data we gather to help us determine the characteristics and practices that teachers bring to the classroom that allow them to connect better with students that we can then use to support other staff in their development. Three, the process, when used as a growth tool rather than an evaluative tool, can create a culture where staff uses student feedback to reflect, identify shortcomings, and use the information in dialogue with students to shift instruction, assessments, feedback, structures, rules, etc. as well as our own behavior in order to impact all students in a positive and more effective way.”

Ways that you can incorporate student voice into your athletic program:

• Create a Google Form that you share out with your team. This could include a “Start-Stop-Continue,” value voting about team decisions or just ask for how athletes are feeling.
• Create a student athlete leadership team, unity council or meet with your captains often in way that allows them to provide you input as well as you to give them direction and instruction.
• Encourage your assistant coaches to cultivate relationships with your athletes and to share with you the “climate” of the program. I tried to assign a coach who I knew had great relationships with athletes to be our team “barometer.”
• Go out of your way to pick three athletes a day to check-in with and see how they are doing.
• At the end of the season, exit interviews allow you to get valuable input on what went well and what ideas athletes may have. Over the years, doing this provided us with several important additions to our program.